(198h) Integrating Service Learning at the University Level with a Summer Outreach Program to Increase High School Girls’ Self-Efficacy in STEM

Women earn around half of the total bachelor’s degrees awarded in the U.S. but their share of degrees in the science and engineering disciplines is around 24%. Factors such as lack of encouragement, discrimination, lower self-efficacy, and bias toward their ability are some of the reasons that discourage women and girls from pursuing careers in STEM disciplines. Several strategies have been suggested to increase girls’ interest in STEM careers. One approach is a summer outreach program for high school girls in which they get an opportunity to learn about science and engineering by performing hands-on activities under the guidance of college students who act as role models and mentors.

In the present work, a synergistic approach was implemented by combining service learning at the university level via an engineering project plan (EPP) module with a high school summer outreach program. The aim of this project was to increase the self-efficacy (belief about one’s abilities) of students ranging from high school to graduate level, and positively impact the social responsibility attitudes of university student participants.

Validated survey results indicated an improvement in high school girls’ confidence in learning and doing science after the summer outreach program. The EPP module helped college students improve their engineering design and project management skills. The college students also realized the importance of providing service to the community at the end of the module. Another benefit of the program is that the undergraduate students generated projects that were later used in the outreach program. Combining high-school community outreach with service learning had a positive impact on the self-efficacy of students from the high school to undergraduate and graduate levels, and had a positive impact on the social responsibility attitudes of university students.